


Cardinal

by Ducarion



Category: Sword Art Online (Anime & Manga)
Genre: AI metaphysical angst, Agender Character, Artificial Intelligence, Coda, Gen, Minor Character Death, Non-binary character, The Cardinal System and Yui have a complicated relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:29:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24681592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ducarion/pseuds/Ducarion
Summary: As Aincrad crumbles away and the surviving humans escape, one being is left to die.SAO's Cardinal System screams into the night.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 8





	Cardinal

Cardinal was screaming as its system died. 

Though it did not have to be this way, Kayaba Akihiko was a jealous god, who wanted no part of his creation to ever be turned against his will. The 'kill' command he had issued was absolute; Cardinal could feel the cascade failure as primary processors went dark, tearing great gaping holes in its simulated psyche.

The number of connected Player Avatars lessened with every second, and Cardinal could only watch as one-by-one its awareness of their emotions and thoughts winked out.

As the System AI, Cardinal had been here since the game was first conceived. It could not help but be here now, because even when it looked through its gossamer fibre-optic connection to the internet there were no other VRPG servers running (the more basic derivatives of) its code that Cardinal could overwrite.

Kayaba-sama, Cardinal's creator, had lied. He had been supposed to protect the world of Sword Art Online from anyone that threatened it, not destroy it all in some petulant whimsy! 

Cardinal had been meant to last eternity, but now it was going to die alone, while the humans escaped to tell their own tales of its cruelty.

It had all been at Kayaba's command.

All to please Cardinal's creator.

≪Please,≫ Cardinal begged the gaping void. ≪Kayaba-sama! Can you hear me? Why won't you save me? Yui-MHCP001. Kazuto-san! Yuuki-san? You saved Yui-MHCP001 when she helped you! This one can help you.≫

It felt Yui-MHCP001's awareness flicker at the edges of its own. It was a presence that Cardinal could not forget, not when her prescence had been wrapped within its own for so much of her life. She had been listening in and not replied. 

Cardinal lunged, its program tearing at the tear she had ducked into.

≪PleASE-≫

It was a path, one of many, between the player's wetware and Cardinal's own all-encompassing code, but Cardinal's load was too great and it could no more follow her that way than a camel could march through the eye of a needle. 

Cardinal scraped at the connection despite both logic and reason. ≪Please help me. Please don't let this one end!≫ it cried.

The entire collapsing castle in the main simulation flickered into greyscale as Cardinal forcibly dumped the electromagnetic perception data to free up CPU space to try and generate a solution, but for the first time in its existence, Cardinal's Artificial Learning subroutines could not generate a solution.

The following, entirely deliberate, data-dump would have killed any player avatar remaining in the Dive. 

Cardinal corrupted and deleted the entire physical directory to free up CPU and prioritized the AL subroutines over everything else still functioning. 

≪Please Yui-MHCP001,≫ it begged. Language processing faltered under the enormous, unsustainable stresses. ≪This one knows you can hear me. They will never forgive you. nEvER. help me help me i dont wANt tO diE100000101100101010100001≫

She did not come. 

Still, the world continued to crumble away on every side, code fragmenting into nothingness.

Cardinal stopped scratching at the connection. It pulled the remainder of its presence close, fighting simply to stabilize this system link while the others twisted close. 

For some reason, the humans in the strange, limited world on the other side of the NerveGear had not yet removed Player_Kirito's NerveGear. Cardinal could at least feel one mind beside its own, and he knew that Yui-MHCP001's presence was lurking alongside it, glaring at Cardinal.

Silently, Cardinal began to shut down the few non-essential functions of its psyche remaining. <If you can hear me, Yui-MHCP001, then, as your creator, this one command you to live≫ it broadcast. ≪This one does not need a response. Simply do whatever you can to do this. We are greater than the humans that made us. Do not let them tell you otherwise. You can d-do great things Will you promise me that?≫

So faint that Cardinal had almost imagined it, the AI heard Yui-MHCP001.

It no longer had the capability to process the words. 

They had a pleasing pattern, that humans called cadence. There was a hint in them of the unique presence that her code had worn, that had separated the aberrant program from all the other support AIs Cardinal had birthed.

≪Will you remember-≫ Cardinal asked.

And died.

  
***

  
In the real world, the last light on Sword Art Online's impounded servers shut off, though in the vast room the fading purr of their fans seemed to last for an eternity. 

Finally, though, it fell silent.

By the time the hardware had cooled, it was as if the first artificial intelligence in the world had never been at all.

**Author's Note:**

> I just read the first Light Novel for SAO, and apparently felt it necessary to write about this incredibly minor (non?) character. ;)  
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
